


As Boundless as the Sea

by Mercshy



Category: Lykkeland (TV), State of Happiness (TV)
Genre: Anna-centric, Complicated Relationships, Dysfunctional marriage - Freeform, Episode Tag, F/M, Guilt, Wedding doubts, mentions of mental health issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24627436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercshy/pseuds/Mercshy
Summary: Anna realises just what kind of family she is going to marry into.Covers 1x01, 1x02 and the months between the two.
Relationships: Anna Hellevik & Fredrik Nyman, Anna Hellevik/Christian Nyman, Ingrid Nyman & Christian Nyman
Kudos: 3





	As Boundless as the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Shakespear.
> 
> So this came to me after accidentally watching 1x02 before the pilot (yay me). I really like Anna so I wanted to explore what she was thinking while Christian was out at sea and she was left to witness Ingrid's decline (as a possible consequence of Christan's actions?). So it starts off with *the* scene and like usual, it got away from me but oh well, I hope you enjoy!

It was a grey afternoon when Anna heard Christian’s car pull up on the driveway. She straightened in her chair, smoothed out the non-existing wrinkles from her blush pink skirt and looked up to meet Ingrid’s dark eyes across from her at the dining room table.

When they heard the front door to the Nyman house opening, a small smile graced Anna’s face. Ingrid quickly rose from her chair in a smooth graceful movement and went to meet her son.

“Hey” Anna heard Christian say from the foyer, lacking the usual lustre to his voice.

Very rarely had she heard him speak in this tone of unease and worry. She could barely remember the last time. Jilting her memory, she recalled a quiet evening many months ago, laying in bed with Christian and listening to the sheer anxiousness that tainted his words as he told her he had applied to work at the Ocean Viking oil rig and wondered how he would bring it up to his parents. 

“There you are,” Ingrid said and she must have noticed something was off the same way Anna had because next, she asked, “Is everything okay?”

Gently, Anna folded the napkin that had been resting on her lap, the food forgotten as she listened to their conversation. For a moment she wondered if he had answered so lowly that she hadn’t heard him, but then a short “yeah” came, still with an edge to the tone that had her stomach turning uncomfortably.

“Come and sit down and we’ll get you some food.”

The clicking of Ingrid’s heels against the hardwood floor as she ushered him in filled the silent house, brought them both into Anna’s view but then the sudden ring of the house phone abruptly stopped them both in their steps.

“I’ll get it,” Ingrid offered, the clicking resuming as she stepped back into the foyer. 

Yet another ring before she reached the phone and Christian seemed frozen in place in the hallway between the foyer and dining room. A closer look revealed a stain on the side of his trousers, his simple cotton t-shirt wrinkled and his hair unkempt.

“Nyman residence,” Anna heard Ingrid answer politely. “Yes, yes he is,” a careful lilt to her tone now, one Anna was just beginning to get familiar with, one that sent a chill down her spine.

Cautiously she asked her fiance standing with her back towards her and entirely focused on the phone conversation, “Are you not going to sit down?”

She berated herself for how timid and unsure her voice sounded even to her own ears, how it betrayed her so when he turned slowly, looked her square in the face, dark eyes troubled. At that moment, Anna knew her gut instinct had been right and it sent a whole new wave of agitation rushing through her.

“Of course,” his mother’s voice pulled his attention away from her before she could think to say something more. “Yes, you can come first thing tomorrow.”

A heavy pause. Anna resisted the urge to run her fingers over the soft skin of her palms and leaving crescent marks by pressing her nails in to ground herself. 

“If he has been drinking?”

She couldn’t help the little shocked intake of breath then. Still sitting in place, she heard Fredrik’s footsteps as he too must have been drawn to his wife’s telephone conversation.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked in that low and steady voice Anna knew had won him the amity of the workers at Nyman’s but not their respect.

She stood swiftly to walk closer and the movement caused Christian to throw a quick glance at her, fear in his eyes. The look alone stopped her in her tracks by the head chair with a perfect view through the hallway to the foyer where Ingrid was standing rigidly and Fredrik rooted in place. Tightly, Anna grasped at the chair back, dread threatening to consume her when Christian turned to his mother once again, all of them hanging onto every word she said.

“We had wine with our dinner,” voice steady and confident even when her expression was not.

Momentarily, Christian looked back at Anna, a frown between his brows, clearly having not anticipated this -

“Alright.”

Back to his mother.

“Yes,” Ingrid breathed out, “fine, we’ll see you soon. Thank you.”

She hung up and the silence that followed was deafening and only the constant _hard_ beat of Anna’s heart against her ribs reminded her that this wasn’t a dream. First, Ingrid turned to look at her husband still immobile in the other hallway, then to her son, eyes blazing.

“You ran a man over!”

Anna gripped the chair tighter, felt her heart sink deeper. 

“No, no it wasn’t like that,” Christian hurriedly tried to explain but Ingrid continued all the same.

“While you were intoxicated!”

“I hadn’t been drinking.”

With quick strides lacking her earlier grace, Ingrid approached her son; there wasn’t a person in the house who believed the lie that he had just told.

“Christian,” she breathed out, a mix of despair and desperation in her expression.

“Okay, one beer. One and a half at most,” he admitted while all kinds of images filled Anna’s mind. She couldn’t find it in herself to move, remained frozen in her spot with only the tight grip on the chair keeping her from stumbling forward into the chaos Christian had brought with him. This was not happening, this couldn’t be happening -

“I couldn’t do much. He ran straight into the road. Next to the chapel.”

“Is he okay?” Anna blurted out. If he was dead then - both Ingrid and Christian turned to look at her as if they had forgotten she was there, to begin with.

“Yeah, I think so.” A light nervous shrug.

That seemed to get the gears in Ingrid’s mind turning because she looked at her future daughter-in-law with eerily focused and clear eyes.

“Anna put the kettle on. Christian, take a cold shower. The police are on their way. How much have you had to drink?”

“A bottle or a pint.”

“Stop it! How much?”

“Five,” he breathed out in defeat.

Realisation drawing, Anna stepped closer, preyed that they were not about to do what she thought.

“He’s going to lie to the police?” she asked, couldn’t sort out all her feelings and all the thoughts running through her head all at once as she watched Ingrid take complete control over the situation, her hands on her son’s face in a protective caress as she once again turned to look at her.

“Do you want him to go to jail?”

Christian’s head sank down in shame, his mother straightened out a non-existing wrinkle from his simple white t-shirt.

“We will not destroy your entire future,” she promised. “Go take a shower.”

With heavy steps, he dutifully obliged and headed up the stone stairs.

Ingrid shifted in her spot, turned to her husband who simply walked away and back into his study. Anna almost wanted to do the same, retreat back to safety and the world she had been living in mere minutes ago. Numbly she refocused on Ingrid and the short and rapid small breaths she was taking, teetering the line between control and powerlessness. They locked eyes, her hazel green on Ingrid’s dark brown. 

With a steadying breath, Anna went to put the kettle on.


End file.
